Educational Media Reviews Online

Hanging Shadows: Perspectives on Italian Horror Cinema provides a personal history of Italian Horror film through the eyes of its makers: the directors, writers, and special effects designers. To round out the picture is Italian film critic Vittorio Giacci whose insight provides perspective into this specialized genre. He discusses the merit and distinctions of what “art” is and its inclusion in horror films as he addresses Mario Bava’s work. He also questions the notion of violence in horror films asking whether it causes violence in the audience or sublimates it.

The documentary situates Italian horror films in terms of the work of other Italian directors and Italian film history: There is thus a sense of learning from earlier directors. Dario Argento is interviewed and discusses how he had been impressed by American film noir and some horror films from the 1930s and 40s like The Black Cat and The Cat People. Michele Soavi recalls being scared by Vampyr as a child and discusses the use of paintings and lithographs as starting points for the look of a film. Luigi Cozzi argues that Italian Horror films come out of the tradition of Westerns in terms of violence. Franco Ferrini who has scripted many films for Argento discusses his collaboration with the director.

Other topics cover issues of financing low budget films, a comparison between other genres, including reality television and the difference between horror and reality.

The film is rather stylized with post-MTV esthetics such as floating identifiers for the interviewees and subtitles that jump form top to bottom of the screen. There are numerous clips of the films discussed, mostly taken from preview trailers as licensing actual film clips would have been very expensive. The only major complaint I have with this film is with the subtitles which are rather sparse for the amount of spoken Italian. I fear too much content is lost without the translation and it is for this reason that I have to withhold a high recommendation and settle for a simple one. Recommended for film studies.